When do you plan on climbing? Later in the season apparently, it does get warmer. I love Haglofs gear. If it was me I would go the warmer jacket. It's just 200 grams more but I am quite conservative in how I choose clothing. I bring stuff based on the premise I might need it if I get stuck, rather than the fast and light ethos.

Thanks for the reply! I see what you mean, shaving 200g off probably isn't worth the risk, and better be a tad too warm than too cold. I'll be going in mid december 2013, but like to plan ahead. Thanks again mate

The warmer the jacket, the greater your chances of suriving a bivouac if you have trouble. I would not take a jacket - I'd take the thickest down parka I could afford - you may want to do other climbs later - possibly even colder than Aconcagua.

But it kind of depends on how badly you want to increase your chance to survive the trip. If going back to work after the climb would be a real bummer, then might go with a lightweight jacket.

I wore a NF Redpoint Optimus Primaloft jacket the first time I climbed it, and a Patagonia DAS parka the second time. Both times I climbed through the night from C1 (Nido) to the summit in 8-9hrs, not using C2. This was cold, both times, around -25C at 6000m at 3am, and I also wore MH Compressor Primaloft pants both times, which made a significant difference.

Most will climb from C2 though, so won't be climbing as much in the dark and cold, so a mega puffy 8000m type parka is not really necessary, unless you have 8000m plans in the near future, and want to buy just one (!*) jacket. Most 750-800 fill power down jackets with a good hood will do. Also, if you take more time down low (as I do) or pre-acclimatise elsewhere like I did (Cordon del Plata) then you may move faster up high, thus not needing such warm gear. On standard commercial itineraries though, most suffer a slow plod from C2, summiting around noon or later, which means you're mostly in the sun, but of course the wind is often strong.

You would not need to do an 8000m peak to need a warm jacket. Denali would require the warmest gear you could afford. Ditto winter mountaineering/camping in much of the US.

In any case you will need lots of fleece in addition to the down gear.

The minimum acceptable on Aconcagua depends on the weather when you are there. If it's snowing with high winds you'll be inside the tent most of the time, but the down will feel good when you have to go outside to shovel snow off the tent, go to the bathroom, etc....

Dane1 wrote:Compared to Denali I found it down right blamy late Dec. None of my party (5) had a huge parka. And were were all fine. Any of the mid weights would work well imo. Anyone of these would work fine:

I had a huge dawn jacket but it wasn't as cold as usual in December 2013.

I wanted to warn everybody who is about to climb Aconcagua about Aconcagua Trek company. DO NOT GO WITH ACONCAGUA TREK – it’s almost a scam. We bought mules service from them and on the way down they must have not secured our bags and as a result we have damages of over 1000 USD worth of equipment. And they refuse to pay us back! The damages include:- backpack completely torn into pieces- solid Northface bag damaged- goggles broken- solar battery broken- some items from the backpack are missing, most expensive and troublesome are corrective glasses (also a swiss army knife, a bottle of gas).

This company damaged our staff, lost some of our properties and refuses to take any responsibility.Imagine if this happened on the way up – we wouldn’t even be able to leave the base camp.So if you don’t want your climbing experience ruined choose other, more professional companies.